


do i love you (oh, i do)

by andfinallywearehome



Category: Friends (TV)
Genre: 'friends' but they fall in love, F/F, canon has no control over me and i will stamp it to the ground
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 07:58:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16929441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andfinallywearehome/pseuds/andfinallywearehome
Summary: It’s when they’re sitting in the coffee house listening to Rachel laughing over Monica recounting some story from high school that Phoebe comes to realise, with a sinking feeling, that maybe she’s fallen in love for the third time unlucky.(or, the one with all the gays)





	do i love you (oh, i do)

**Author's Note:**

> *shows up with a lukewarm starbucks twenty years late to the f.r.i.e.n.d.s bandwagon* you know what i'm about to say it: ross and rachel together are terrible.
> 
>  
> 
> title is from Same Old Same Old by the civil wars, and i own nothing.

Phoebe Buffay has only truly been in love twice when Rachel Green stumbles through the door of Central Perk. She doesn’t know, as she’s watching the frazzled woman in the wedding dress, that this is going to be the third time.

It takes her some time, actually, to realise.

Rachel is used to being a little spoiled, and it doesn’t take a genius to see that - _but_ she’s also funny, and compassionate, and so goddamn determined to succeed. She fits into their little group seamlessly - she comforts Monica after unsuccessful dates, snarks with the guys about everything and anything, cheers Phoebe on at every single Central Perk show she plays, no matter how well she performs. She’s become as much a part of their orbit as they seem to have become part of hers.

It’s when they’re sitting in the coffee house listening to Rachel laughing over Monica recounting some story from high school that Phoebe comes to realise, with a sinking feeling, that maybe she’s fallen in love for the third time _un_ lucky.

 

//

 

She’s not the only one to notice these things.

It becomes obvious pretty quickly (to everyone except Rachel) that Ross is head over heels in love with her. Phoebe can’t even blame him for it, because, really, how could anyone _not_ be head over heels for Rachel Green? The look he has in his eyes when Monica tells him she’s out having drinks with Carl from the coffee place, some guy with twinkly eyes and a smile to match (Rachel’s words, not hers), is scarily similar to the look she catches glimpses of in the mirror sometimes, and no amount of kidding around will settle the uneasy feeling in her stomach after that.

Ross leaves Rachel’s birthday present with them before he heads to the airport - it’s a small box that doesn’t seem to hold much significance at first, until Chandler lets it slip that Ross does this sort of ridiculous gesture when he’s in love, and Rachel gawks at him like her entire world view has just changed.

“What else did he say?” She demands, eyes flickering between Chandler and Joey, fingers wound tightly around the box of the beloved pin until her knuckles are bleached white. “Does he, like, want to go out with me?”

“Well, given that he’s desperately in love with you, he probably wouldn’t mind getting a cup of coffee or something.”

Phoebe could laugh at that. Yeah. She knows the feeling.

Rachel’s eyes widen. “All this time?” She hesitates for a few seconds, some internal conflict only visible by the way her hand flexes around the gift in her hands. “Well, I’ve - I’ve got to talk to him.”

She’s up on her feet in an instant, blindly reaching for her jacket despite Chandler’s protests.

“What are you gonna say to him?” Monica asks, following her scattered movements; Phoebe nods along with her, but she’s not sure she really wants to know the answer.

“I don’t - I don’t know.” Rachel pauses for a moment on her way to the front door, arms still caught in the sleeves of her jacket, and she looks so helpless all of a sudden, like she’s just been picked up and thrown in the deep end (in a way, she has). “Maybe I’ll know when I see him.”

“Okay -” Phoebe grabs the photo of Ross from where it’s been abandoned on the table, holding it up over her face. “Does this help?”

She peers out a couple of seconds later; Rachel’s watching her, still paused by the door, her face covered in an emotion she can’t quite name.

“No,” she says after a few seconds, and then sighs. “Look, I can’t wait a week to see him. This is just too big. I just have to talk to him. I’ll see you later.”

She’s out of sight in three steps.

 

//

 

Phoebe’s a nervous bundle of energy until Rachel walks back into the apartment, over two hours later, after Joey and Chandler have already gone back across the hall. She makes a bee-line for the table and takes the seat beside her, sighing like she’s pushing a weight from her shoulders.

“Are you okay?” Phoebe asks.

“Yeah.” Rachel winds an arm around her and lets her head fall to rest on her shoulder. “I didn’t catch him in time.”

“Oh, honey.” Monica places a cup of coco on the table in front of her. “Don’t worry. There’s always the return flight.”

Rachel smiles up at her, weary. “Mon, I don’t think I’m going to go.”

“What?” Monica stares at her, incredulous. “But what about figuring out your feelings when you see him?”

“I kind of don’t think I need to.” Rachel smiles again at the questioning looks this earns, the little secret smile she gives when there’s more things going on that she cares to admit. “It’s okay - really, it is.”

Monica looks ready to start protesting, having hyped herself up for Rachel and her brother _finally_ getting together, but then decides against it.

“Okay, honey.” She joins the hug squashed around the kitchen table. “Whatever you want.”

 

//

 

The week passes silently, without incident. Rachel doesn’t go to the airport.

Perhaps it’s for the best, in the end. Ross has a new girlfriend by the time he comes back from China - Julie, who seems to embody everything that is sugar and spice and all things nice about the world. Monica takes a reluctant liking to her after they start having lunch together, and perhaps Rachel is a little peeved about this, Phoebe thinks, by the slight crease in her brow every time it comes up in conversation. Still, she doesn’t say anything, which is quite unusual; when Rachel doesn’t like something, she’ll find a way to make it known.

“I don’t get it,” Phoebe says a little while later, when it’s just the two of them in the apartment, clearing up after dinner (the others have gotten a head start and headed down to Central Perk already). “Why aren’t you upset?” And then, because she’s always been impulsive: “I kind of thought you wanted to go out with Ross.”

Rachel gives her a half smile. “I don’t know. I missed him when I got the airport, and then I went to sit in the coffee place across the street for a while, and I just - I felt like I was supposed to be more upset than I was, and no matter what I did, I couldn’t manage it. Same with Julie. I’m supposed to be upset about that, right?” Phoebe nods. “I’m not. And I don’t regret not going to the airport to meet them off the plane, so I’m guessing it was the right decision and things are just going to carry on as normal around here.”

“I suppose.”

“And, hey -” Rachel throws her a grin over her shoulder “ - it’s not like I’ll never find another guy, right?”

Phoebe’s fingers twist and tangle in the dishcloth in her hand. “Yeah. Right.”

 

//

 

Life carries on.

Ross and Julie are still going strong, and Phoebe’s come to realise that she actually quite likes her too. Monica winds up dating a friend of her parents, Richard, and looks happier than they’ve seen her in a while. Joey, on the other hand, moves out of Chandler’s apartment across the hall, and the atmosphere is suddenly incredibly awkward, both of them too stubborn to admit that they miss the other. This feels like it’s about more than that, however, that it runs deeper than just a dispute about who is living where - and, god, Phoebe thought _she_ was bad with words when it comes to this stuff. Not even all of them going over to visit Joey’s new place, minus one very important part of their group, is enough to convince him to try and at least _talk_ to Chandler, even though it’s blatantly obvious that he secretly wants to.

“You think he’d take me back?” Joey eventually asks her and Monica as they sit in Central Perk, and suddenly Phoebe _gets_ it, sees the same spark in his eyes that she knows must be in her own eyes every time she finds herself in the general vicinity of Rachel.

“I promise you,” Monica says, before Phoebe can say it herself, “he would definitely want you back.”

It’s never that simple, of course. Chandler has a new roommate by the end of the week - Eddie, who turns out to not be as fun-loving as he had initially thought. It all leads to a elaborate scheme in order to get rid of him (it’s something of a small miracle that it actually works) and get the guys to actually talk to one another. Chandler and Joey cross the hall to Monica’s to join the rest of them for dinner that evening, to celebrate having made up over the whole apartment thing, and, if Phoebe’s not mistaken, they’re hovering a little _too_ close to each other than the boundaries of platonic friendships would deem appropriate.

Good for them, she thinks. At least someone should get a happy ending to their relationship drama around here.

At some point in the evening, after the second bottle of wine has been opened and the evening has settled into watching whatever is on television, Rachel throws an arm around her and pulls her into a tight embrace as all six of them try to squash on the couch.

“Glad things are finally back to normal, right, honey?” She says, a break in the silence that seems to be made up of the rushing in Phoebe’s ears.

“Yeah.” Phoebe’s hand manages to find Rachel’s and she squeezes it. “Definitely.”

 

//

 

For reasons no one can quite understand, Rachel promises to be the maid of honour at Barry and Mindy’s wedding.

And, boy, the outfit choice is _something._

Phoebe meets everyone out in the hallway to see off the wedding crowd. Chandler and Joey are already there, loitering outside their front door, and she smiles at the sight of them holding hands.

“Are you the cutest?” She says.

“I’m afraid I might just be,” Chandler says, a quip to cover up the little shy smile she can see trying to make its way onto his face. Joey just rolls his eyes next to him.

The wedding party emerges then, one by one, out of the door: Monica and Richard, Ross, and then Rachel, in the offending bright pink garment, the _princess bubble yum_ of it all, this time adorned with an even more extravagant hat. She really does look like a princess, Phoebe thinks, but not in the teasing way Chandler says.

She’s a little biased, though, because Rachel always looks like a princess to her.

“I’m sorry we don’t have your sheep,” Chandler says upon seeing her. Joey nudges him in the side.

“Aw, Rach, I think you look cute.”

Rachel doesn’t look convinced - in fact, she looks like she’s about to turn around, barricade herself in Monica’s apartment, and refuse to leave.

“Hey.” Phoebe grabs her arm before she can get away. “I think you look great.” She swallows, throat suddenly dry. “I think you always look great.”

Rachel raises an eyebrow, like she’s waiting for the punchline that never follows, and then smiles.

“Thanks, Pheebs.”

 

//

 

They’re waiting in Chandler and Joey’s apartment for the rest of their gang to get home when Joey pulls her to one side.

“Is there somethin’ you want to talk about?” He asks, and Phoebe nearly drops the mug of tea in her hand.

“What do you mean?”

Joey doesn’t spell it out, but he doesn’t need to - she can tell from his face that he already knows.

“You know you can tell us anything, right, Pheebs?” He says instead, and his dark eyes are warm and earnest. She has a feeling he’s thinking of her and Monica sitting with him in Central Perk when he was so unsure about him and Chandler. “No matter what.”

_Thank you_ , Phoebe wants to say, but suddenly she’s not sure she can actually form the words. 

“I know,” she replies instead, and then pulls Joey into a hug and hopes he understands.

 

//

 

“How did it go?” Chandler asks when Rachel knocks on their door after the wedding.

“As well as it could have done. I sacrificed all the dignity I had left, but it wasn’t the worst thing in the world. In fact -” She raises her chin, defiant, to prove her point “- I think I might have left with my head held high.”

Phoebe smiles. “That sounds great.”

“Except that you guys didn’t hear the rendition of _Copa Cabana_ ,” Ross says, earning himself an elbow to the side.

They cross the hallway to Monica’s as usual to get the full story of the day’s events. Once the evening has lulled, however, Rachel joins Phoebe on the couch, fingers bunched in the fabric of her neon pink skirt.

“Thanks,” she says over the low hum of the television.

Phoebe raises an eyebrow. “For what?”

“For being nice about the dress. Like, actually, _genuinely_ nice about it.”

“Oh. That. It was nothing.”

“No, it wasn’t. If you didn’t say anything, I might have walked out of that wedding and given Barry the satisfaction of knowing I couldn’t get through it.”

“Well, you’re welcome, I guess.”

They lapse back into silence for a little while, and then Rachel sighs loudly.

“Is there something wrong with me?”

Phoebe turns to her in alarm. “Why would you think that?”

“I was so sure that I’d see Barry again and feel something. Even if it was resentment. I just - _didn’t._ I didn’t feel anything at all. Just like when Ross bought Julie home, I don’t feel bad, or like I missed my chance, or _anything_. Why don’t I feel like that? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to feel when these things happen?”

“Well, it’s like you said,” Phoebe says, thinking back to one of their earlier conversations. “There are plenty of guys out there. Maybe you’ve found someone else and haven’t realised yet.”

She runs through the potential candidates in her head, trying to list who it could be. Maybe it’s Carl from the coffee place, the guy with the bright eyes and charming smile. Maybe it’s Paolo, because sometimes feelings don’t know what language barriers are (Phoebe really _really_ hopes it’s not him). Maybe it’s someone none of them have met yet, someone that hangs around Central Perk on the (rare) occasions that they aren’t there. She’s about to ask, to go back over the dates Rachel’s had recently, but Rachel is just watching her with that unreadable expression again, as if she’s turning something over and over in her mind.

“Maybe you’re right,” she says finally, and leans forward to kiss her.

It’s quick, just a soft chaste press to her lips, but it still makes Phoebe freeze up, not knowing what she’s supposed to do, because she’s never actually thought about the scenario where _Rachel_ is the one to kiss _her_.

Rachel pulls back suddenly when she realises Phoebe hasn’t reacted.

“Oh, god - Oh, god, I’ve read this wrong, haven’t I?” She hides her face behind her hands. “I’m sorry, I just, I’ve been thinking about this for a while now -”

“Rachel.”

“- and I needed to see if it was real, and _wow_ , but if you’re not comfortable with this, I -”

“ _Rachel_.” Phoebe draws her hands away from her face and leans in to kiss her again, just as quick, just as gentle, cutting off the rambling apology. She can feel the smile starting to stretch across her face in the silence that follows; not even the sound of the history channel in the background can break the mood.

“So I’m not reading into this too much?” Rachel says after a moment, and Phoebe laughs, the sound almost lost in the non existent distance between them.

“Definitely not.”

 

//

 

They’re in Central Perk again, waiting for Ross and Julie to come back from lunch. Phoebe is curled at one end of the couch, listening to Monica, Joey and Chandler arguing about the _true_ value of the show _Baywatch_ , when a mug of coffee appears in front of her.

“For you,” Rachel says, and kisses her cheek before walking off.

The coffee tastes disgusting, but Phoebe drinks it with a smile on her face.

**Author's Note:**

> i started this show two months ago and vowed i wouldn't write f.r.i.e.n.d.s fic, yet here we are, lmao. the promise of '90s lgbt was too much for me, i've been sleeping on some good ships.


End file.
